The Supreme Court Monday refused to quash corruption charges against former Punjab and Haryana High Court judge Nirmal Yadav in the 2008 cash-at-judge’s door case. At this stage,we are not inclined to quash the chargesheet, a bench of justices H L Dattu and C K Prasad said and sent the case back to the trial court in Chandigarh.

The court also allowed Yadav to raise her objections before the trial court,which,it added,will examine all issues on merit without being influenced by observations made by the Punjab and Haryana High Court. The High Court had dismissed Yadav’s challenge to grant of sanction for her prosecution.

In the Supreme Court,Tulsi argued that Yadav was not provided the material on the basis of which the High Court decided the case against her. He also argued that since then Chief Justice of India K G Balakrishnan had denied sanction for Yadav’s prosecution,his successor S H Kapadia had no powers to review or reconsider it, unless there was additional evidence on record,which,he added,was not the case in this matter.

Interestingly,Yadav had made the same contentions before the High Court as well but it dismissed them. The court said the record confirmed that the question of sanction for prosecution was examined for the first time by Justice Kapadia and not Justice Balakrishnan.

The case dates to 2008 when a bag containing Rs 15 lakh was found at the door of a judge. The CBI later said the cash was was meant for Yadav  to allegedly purchase land in Solan,Himachal Pradesh  but was mistakenly delivered to another judge.